Brahmagupta Maurya

Shriti Aggarwal Sarkar

 LIFE AND CAREER

•Brahmagupta was born in 598 AD in the city of Bhinmal in Northwest India.

•He was the son of Jishnu Gupta, an astrologer and a Hindu who followed Shaivite.

•Brahmagupta thought of himself as an astronomer who did some mathematics, but he is now chiefly remembered for
his contributions to mathematics.

•Most of his important discoveries were written as poetry rather than as mathematical equations. Nonetheless, truth is
truth, regardless of how it may be written.

•Prithudaka Swami, who was a later commentator, called him Bhillamalacarya, which means the teacher from
Bhillamala.

•Bhillamala was the capital of the Gurjara Desa, the second largest kingdom of Western India, and it was also a center
of learning for mathematics and astronomy.

•Brahmagupta became an astronomer at the Brahmapaksha school, which was one of the four major schools of Indian
astronomy during this period.
•Brahmagupta studied the five traditional siddhantas on Indian astronomy, including the work of other astronomers like
Aryabhata I, Latadeva, Pradyumna, Varahamihira, Simha, Sirisena, Vijayanandan, and Vishnu Chandra.

•In the year 628, at the age of 30, Brahmagupta composed the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (the improved treatise of Brahma),
which is believed to be a revised version of the received Siddhanta of the Brahmapaksha school.

•Later, Brahmagupta moved to Ujjain, another major center for astronomy, and became the head of the astronomical
observatory.

•At the age of 67, he composed his next well-known work, Khandakhādyaka, which was a practical manual of Indian 
astronomy in the Karana category. I It was meant to be used by students.

•Brahmagupta died in 668 AD, presumably in Ujjain.

 BRAHMASPHUTASIDDHANTA – TREAT ZERO AS A NUMBER

•One of the most significant contributions of Brahmagupta to mathematics was the introduction of ‘zero’ to the
number system. It stood for ‘nothing’.

•His work, the ‘Brahmasphutasiddhanta’, which contained many mathematical findings written in verse form, is
probably the earliest known text to treat zero as a number in its own right.

•It had several rules of arithmetics, which is an element of mathematical solutions now.

•Brahmagupta created the basic mathematical rules for dealing with zero, such as 1 + 0 = 1; 1 – 0 = 1; and 1 x 0 = 0.
Although his understanding of division by zero was incomplete, he even thought that 1 ÷ 0 = 0.

•Bhaskara II, an Indian mathematician in the 12th century, showed that the answer should be infinity, not zero
(because ONE can be divided into an infinite number of pieces of size ZERO). This answer was considered correct
for a long time.

•However, this logic doesn’t explain why 2 ÷ 0, 7 ÷ 0, etc., should also be zero. The modern view is that a number
divided by zero is actually “undefined”.
•Brahmagupta was the one to give the area of a triangle and the important rules of trigonometry, including values
of the sin function.

•Brahmagupta introduced the formula for cyclic quadrilaterals.

•He additionally gave the value of ‘Pi’ as square root tend to be accurate and 3 as the practical value.

•He also introduced the concept of negative numbers

CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE AND ASTRONOMY

•Brahmagupta argued that Earth, as well as the universe, is round and not flat.

•Brahmagupta was the first person to use mathematics to predict the positions of the planets and the timings of the
lunar and solar eclipses.

•He additionally calculated the length of the solar year, which was 365 days, 5 minutes, and 19 seconds. This
calculation is quite accurate based on today’s calculation of 365 days, 5 hours and 19 seconds.

•Brahmagupta also talked about ‘gravity’ in one of his statements, stating: ‘Bodies fall towards the earth as it is in
the nature of the earth to attract bodies, just as it is in the nature of water to flow’.
Brahmagupta Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Brahmagupta across 19 in-
depth pages. These are ready-to-use Brahmagupta worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about
Brahmagupta, an Ancient Indian astronomer and mathematician, who was the first person to give rules to
compute with zero. Brahmagupta is the author of the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta and the Khaṇḍakhādyaka.